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Forever perched atop a cliff face, the wind in their hair, the rain in their face, a legion of the damned a brooding cloud of menace on the horizon, things must be tough in Within Temptation’s world. It must play havoc with the school run alone.

Built around the husband and wife team of guitarist Robert Westerholt and vocalist Sharon den Adel, they’re as popular at home as Heineken, their brand of bombastic, string-laden hard rock is as over the top as a Charlie Sheen house party.

Their latest album, fittingly, is a concept piece (with a storyline so dense it’s liable to give you a headache unravelling it all) devised by BloodRayne writer Stephen O’Connell.

It’s grandstanding stuff, multi-layered, complex and rich, and especially good in the soaring (they soar a lot) Faster, the thundering Where Is The Edge and the massive A Demon’s Fate.

Philip Wilding is a novelist, journalist, scriptwriter, biographer and radio producer. As a young journalist he criss-crossed most of the United States with bands like Motley Crue, Kiss and Poison (think the Almost Famous movie but with more hairspray). More latterly, he’s sat down to chat with bands like the slightly more erudite Manic Street Preachers, Afghan Whigs, Rush and Marillion.